


Giving In

by KestrelGirl



Series: Frostbite [1]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Amputation, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Frostbite, Gen, Illustrations, Mild Language, Mind Control, Suicide, Sylvari (Guild Wars), Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestrelGirl/pseuds/KestrelGirl
Summary: The Dream and Nightmare protect sylvari from corruption by elder dragons, but when someone like Siocánta rejects both, it's only a matter of time. She dreamed of Jormag, and her love of the cold and morbid curiosity may get her more than what she bargained for as she ventures north toward the dragon beckoning her. Sons of Svanir be damned: she'll find a way to be cold enough, even if it kills her.Contains depictions of severe frostbite (though not on something with flesh), death, and mild body horror.Siocánta is pronounced sho-KAHN-ta.
Series: Frostbite [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666519
Kudos: 7





	Giving In

It seems so long ago that I first heard its voice. No, not Mordremoth’s. We all heard _that._ No, I mean Jormag; for in my mind, the voice of one dragon was merely replaced with another.

I’d left the Nightmare Court by then, and was well into the Shiverpeaks, desperate to leave the stifling heat of both sylvari territory _and_ civilization. As much as I liked the ideal of rejecting the laws of life and morality, I couldn’t believe how many of the courtiers genuinely _enjoyed_ torturing neophytes - or how much I overheated even in the coolest reaches of its territory.

Even after Mordremoth’s death, a whisper nagged at the back of my mind, too quiet to hear. Was this the remnants of my link to the Dream of Dreams, trying to rekindle itself and find a lost soul? I certainly assumed as much. But as I reveled in the cold around me - finally, somewhere that didn’t feel like it was killing me slowly! - I felt pulled toward every shard of corrupted ice I encountered on my way northward. No, it was just the call of the void.

Well, it might have been, until it grew louder as I made my way into a Svanir-infested cave. 

To be blunt, I realized I’d made a fatal mistake _after_ it was too late to turn back. The cultists called me a wench and a slave to a dead, heretical dragon - but they figured that either I’d die here, or I’d become their minion if this somehow worked. What a fucked-up win-win situation _that_ would be. But it somehow meant that they didn’t butcher me on the spot. Instead, they led me over to a secluded patch of frozen ground. Spikes of magic-clouded ice, gleaming blue and purple, surrounded me. As the Sons of Svanir bragged about their plans for me, for the first time, I could understand something the faint whisper said. 

_Let me help you._

Against all the judgement I had, be it better or worse, I let the cold creep in as I listened to what this strange new presence had to say.

I must have been in that cavern for hours, maybe even days. I sat there, alone and numb, with the inklings of words infiltrating my consciousness to keep me company. Every surface around me was covered in ice, and I saw myself change in each shimmering wall and crystal. The frost touched every corner of me with its magic, curling leaves and petals and tracing filigrees over my fading bark. Most of my armor fell off, dead and dry. I stared into the clearest facet I could find, refusing to blink as my once-green irises shifted to the bright turquoise of my surroundings.

But at some point, I simply gave up. Nothing had come to me to bargain. I was still alive, still sane, and apparently intact. I walked out - straight into a Vigil patrol. 

Their norn leader spoke up first, a burly dark-bearded man. “C’mon. Get up. What’s a sylvari like you doing in a Svanir den? You’ve gotta have a death wish.”

A sandy-furred charr replied to him. “Hold on. She’s as frozen over as one of _them._ How does that…” 

A sylvari - and let me tell you, I did _not_ want to see another one here in the mountains - interrupted the charr. “We plants get frost. Figure this one’s no exception.”

“She’s not in good shape,” they continued. “And I’ve never seen eyes the color of _that_ ice before, but hers are so bright I’m worried she’s genuinely turned. I don’t think camp has enough resources for what she needs. Get her to Hoelbrak.”

“I’m still a pathetic grandchild of Mordremoth, much to my chagrin,” I retorted. “I’m not quite sure what took me into that cave, but hell, I’m in one piece, and that’s what matters to you folk.”

The charr signaled me to climb on her back. “I’ve carried rucksacks bigger than you,” she wisecracked. “We’ve got no spare gear, and I figure you shouldn’t be in the snow even for another hour.” That bad, eh?

 _You can’t trust them. Kill her._ No. Why would I bite the hand that feeds me? Couldn’t do that.

Which was probably a good thing, because my condition _was_ that bad. Lost most of my fingers, and nearly my legs below the knee, but got away with just some toes missing. They’d grow back, but no telling how slowly. The charr got some of her friends to make what they joked were the smallest combat prosthetics they’d ever made, a pair of metal gloves with articulated fingers. Moving what remained of my hands let me control the gloves to grip things and do simple enough tasks - and at least I could fight.

* * *

But enough about my reckless four-years-ago self. It’s not even worth bringing up how I got this big old doofus of an ice drake. Thing is, I’m a lot further north now. I have the Vigil to thank for taking me on the long road up. And here, the whispers are a hell of a lot louder. They are now a voice. _Jormag’s_ voice.

_I’ve seen others of your kind here. Curious things, you sylvari are. Every single one of you is desperate for control over your own lives. I can give you that. And so much more._

After spending nearly a year stationed in Frostgorge Sound, I’ve finally made it to the edge of the world, as far north as anyone can go: Bjora Marches. Once the norn heartland, now the den of the ice dragon’s champion, Drakkar.

It’s so cold here. Yet not cold enough, even as I walk amongst glaciers. Everyone here can hear the dragon. It’s disturbingly soothing. Alluring, even. Its voice is androgynous, and able to morph into anything, usually the reassuring voice of a loved one. I cut all my ties long ago, but sometimes I hear the voice of a friend from the Court, and wonder what went wrong. _Why did you leave? You could have brought so many with you._

 _You can’t trust the soldiers,_ Jormag tells me. _They will say they want to help. They don’t. You’re better with me._ But I’m not ready to believe that yet. Instead, I wander off. 

The inland sea to the west of Jora’s Keep and the kodan settlement of Still Waters Speaking, once called Drakkar Lake, is completely icebound. I follow the frozen waters southward, past crystalline cliffs and treacherous crags. The lake is still at night, empty of kodan fishers, but I still have to evade Svanir as I duck into a lonely passage - one that leads to a moonlit cave.

It’s beautiful. And it’s… familiar. I saw this in my Dream, the Dream I swore to forget. Here, Jormag’s voice presses on my mind nearly as much as Mordremoth’s did. No, more than that. But instead of a headache, its presence exhausts me, in a way that just makes me want to fall into a deep, refreshing sleep.

Now that I think about it, I could sleep here. _Give in. Sleep._

I could rest. _Yes. Rest._

It’s freezing, but I feel warm. Hot, even. I take my coat and boots off, and snap off my gloves. I stretch what remains of my hands. _You could stay here forever._ Maybe I could.

I lie down, spreading myself over the smooth, icy floor. Some repressed instinct inside of me makes my bark scream in pain, threatening to spill its blackening death into my heartwood. Then it dulls as I go numb, and I let my consciousness slip away. For a moment, I hope it doesn’t come back. _Why would you ever leave this place?_ But instead, for the first time in a decade and a half, I dream - a dragon’s dream.

* * *

I find myself in… is this the same cave? No. I’m still looking up at the sky, but in every other way, it’s different. A deeper voice growls around me, echoing against the walls, deafening yet near unintelligible aside from a single phrase: _You are here…_

There’s even more ice here, and it’s… green. How strange. I talk as I stir. My voice is not mine. My voice is the dragon’s. Something rises inside me, forcing the words out of my frost-chapped lips.

_You have done well, child. I will give you the strength you seek. But you must first let go._

I stagger to my feet. My leaves are as frostbitten as they were in that Svanir den. My fingers and toes are still stubs. Every movement I make is wrong, every joint at once tense and limp. My head clings to my neck at an odd angle. It could snap, and I could fall down. I am a puppet. Jormag’s puppet.

_Ice fortifies. Ice protects. Yet you still fear that which can save you?_

My veins are still. My sap is frozen, expanding, ready to burst out. The cold fills every cavity of my body.

I limp to a gleaming wall, smooth and polished as a mirror. I see myself. I am not myself.

_This is what you could be. With me._

_Don’t you like it?_

I can’t respond. The chill creeps up through my throat, seizing my tongue.

My limbs creak, laden with ice, as I reach for my neck in a panic. Then I keel over, tipped off balance, as my head swings forward. For a moment I can see my hands growing back, corrupted crystals pushing through the bark, the new digits covered in rime, before everything goes black. 

Then I wake up, gasping for air, still the same old me, in the same place I was before I drifted off.

Jormag continues to plead to me as I put my armor back on. _Don’t you want this? Don’t you want what you lost?_

__

The stumps of my hands and feet have lost feeling, and darkened to an ugly shade of blue-black. I can’t lose more of myself and still fight.

I have no choice but to say _yes._

_Then I will take you, child, to the place where the ice is green._

* * *

The frostbite is bad enough that it’s hard to walk. But if Jormag says I’m not going very far, then I should trust it and push on.

Indeed, I only have to retrace my steps back to the center of Drakkar Lake. There is a tunnel leading beneath the surface. No one has gone in and come back alive, short of Sons of Svanir. I think I know why.

Everything in the tunnel averts its gaze from me. Must be Jormag’s blessing - because I’d be too slow not to get caught by any of its minions in here.

I’m stumbling, now, as I wind through this strange new cavern. But it isn’t long before I see it: green ice. _Not this chamber. Not yet. Soon._

I’m warm again. I leave my armor and gloves behind. My arms and legs are numb. I have to crawl.

Just a bit more. _Come on. Not much longer._ But the entrance to this chamber, the one I dreamed of, is a ledge. It must be a twenty-foot drop to the ground below, and I can’t walk, let alone climb-

_Jump._

If you say so, Jormag.

It takes all my strength to get to my feet and brace myself. I fall, and for a moment I’m aware that my head is… in the wrong place -

* * *

_Is this the end?_

_No. Not for you. I have plans for you._

_Get up._

I’m… awake? So cold. Talking. Not my voice. Familiar… that dream… _YOU ARE HERE._ I’m moving. Stiff. Ice all over me. Ice inside me. Neck feels… wrong. Cold is good. Finally enough. But need my coat… 

My arms… they… hurt! Not numb anymore. Not black anymore? Trying to scream. Something in my throat. Can’t… breathe!… no… don’t need to breathe. Wait - my hands, they’re…?!

_Calm down, child. Let it take hold. Take your weapons._

They’re so… beautiful. I can… move my fingers. One by one.

_Your dagger broke. But you can do better than that._

AGH! - still choking back something - a spike of ice is… coming out of my hand. There are more coming… all over my wrists. The reason they hurt. They’re so… swollen… 

_Take the big one. Snap it off. See? It’s a new dagger. You’re welcome._

Thank… you… 

Need to bend over. My neck - oh, no. Have to… fix that. There we go. Something in my mouth. I gotta… urgh.

Everything inside… the shards… won’t stop coming. There’s spit frozen on my lip. I try to talk to Jormag. The only one who will listen now. All that comes out is ice.

_Now go home. They will let you in. Then you kill them._

* * *

_“I’m not sure what happened to that strange sylvari, the one with the mechanical hands who kept insisting she liked the cold. She came back to camp last night in a silent daze after wandering off a few days ago, leaving her drake behind. We placed her in the infirmary immediately, as her frostbite seemed so severe, she should have been dead. I say “should have” because she summoned icy daggers out of nowhere and utterly butchered the medics who were about to save what they could, then fled. Someone told me there were crystals all over her arms. I heard someone else say that she opened her mouth to speak, but frozen flowers and petals fell out instead. She’s… she’s a sylvari. She can’t be icebrood. Can she?_

_“Spirits save us from her deranged wrath, but we can’t speak of her anymore. For as the kodan say, her voice is not her own.”_

_\- Final notes in a fallen Vigil soldier’s notebook_


End file.
